Used Up
by Kelmin
Summary: Franklin's angsty musings on the events of late S4. Garibaldi's private response; mid S5. T rating for language, theme, and suggestion of violence. Please review; all critique is welcome.
1. Being used

A/N: Franklin gets short shrift in the series. Here's a peek inside his head, at the end of S4.

Disclaimer: I don't own B5 – but you knew that, didn't you?

**Used Up**

Ch. 1 Being used

There's not a lot that I hate more than being used. There was that time in med school when Giselle Schneider asked me out, but it turned out she only wanted my Neuro notes. Then there was Cailyn. In the end, I didn't mind that time so much. Yeah, she used me because she knew I was a doctor, but she used me to get something she _needed_, not something she wanted.

But _this_ time – this time, I was used to hurt someone close to me. I know, I know, they hurt John a _lot_ worse than they hurt me. They _used_ him a lot worse than they used me. But, still, I feel violated.

They knew he trusted me as a friend, so they used his mental images of me – my appearance, the sound of my voice – to try to trick him into trusting _them_. They made him think _I _was the one giving him the drugs. They made him think I was trying to turn him against everything he believed in.

When we first got him out of his cell, he was so drugged up he couldn't tell who was real and who wasn't. I think the only reason he believed he was actually being rescued is that Michael was there. After all, why would his own personal traitor come to get him out of Hell? I was right there in front of John, taking the restraints off and talking to him, but the only person he spoke to was Michael, even if it was a threat.

It scared the shit out of me to see the look on John's face when he drained an entire PPG power pack into that guard. I've seen him kill, and I've seen him angry, but the sight of him killing in anger chilled my soul. After that, he just plain collapsed. Somehow, Lyta and I managed to pretty much carry him _and_ Garibaldi out to the getaway car.

I'd read up on post-torture psych rehab, and I'd read up on the effects of the drugs I thought they would use. Just reading about it made me ill – how could any physician come up with shit like that? I'd told the Resistance folks what medical supplies to have ready at the safe house. I was right to be afraid that we'd need most of them.

After the drugs wore off, in the safe house, that's when I started to guess I'd been used. John's first words to me were a shot to the heart – "Keep your filthy needles away from me, you sick fuck!" Then, he did his best to throw me across the room. Not that he could, with six broken ribs, severe dehydration, internal injuries, a week on IV nutrition and no sleep, and – well, the list is practically endless. I knew what he was _trying_ to do, though.

The worst of it, for both of us, was that I didn't have a choice. I had to get him fit enough to walk out the door, and get to the shuttleport, to get the hell off Mars. To do that, I had to tape his ribs, I had to dress the burns, I had to stitch the gashes. And I couldn't do any of those things from across the room. He shrieked at me, over and over, "No more drugs!"

It took three men to hold him down while I sedated him.

~-~-~-~-~-

It didn't take John long to realize that it wasn't really me in the cell – that it wasn't really me that was hurting him, fucking with his mind. He didn't remember trying to throw me into the wall of the safe house. He _did_ remember the fight that he put up when I had to sedate him.

After it was all over, after Clark was dead, after we were all back on the station, he apologized. "I'm sorry," he said, "I know you were trying to help. I didn't know what I was doing."

But _I_ did –_ I_ knew what I was doing. I knew I was forcing drugs on someone who didn't want them. "It was for his own good." That's what any rational person would tell me. I know it's true. But when I did it, when I jammed that needle in his vein, they were using me again. And that time it really _was_ me they were using. Not my name, not my voice, but Stephen Franklin, in the flesh.


	2. Being the user

Ch. 2: Being the user

Remember when I said, "There's not much more I hate than being used?" Well, there _is_ one thing I hate more than being used, and that's using someone else.

I knew, deep down, what Sheridan was eventually going to want with the telepaths. I knew. That's why I worked my ass off trying to find a way, _any_ way, to get the Shadow technology out of them. To be honest, I almost started with the stims again, trying to find a way. For a while, I thought that Lyta would be able to help, but she just ended up being the trigger used to fire the weapons. So, in a sense, I used her, too.

Sheridan was right, though. It was war, and I got nominated to be the draft board. I had to decide which ones to use, and which ones to keep in the freezer. Maybe we were just keeping those still frozen for the next battle; maybe they'd get lucky someday and we'd find a way to get them back to how they were before the Shadows used them.

Maybe Bester's girlfriend would get lucky. Maybe she'd luck out, and we'd find a way to get the Shadow tech out later, and then she could go back to her old life of being used by Psi Corps. Lucky girl.

What I learned later, was that most of the telepaths we planted on Clark's ships actually survived their initial use. But, then, the crews of those ships had to kill them, to save their ships and the rest of the people on those ships. So, even though I never fired a PPG, I surely killed those people.

I see now why my father is such a hard man. His whole life, he's had to use people. And now – I know what it feels like. Funny, it doesn't make me want to call him and talk about it. The real irony is that I chose my path so I could try to escape his. But, like father, like son. I got to send my very own draftees to their deaths.

The worst thing anyone said to me about this came from another doctor in Medlab. I'm not going to say who it was – it doesn't really matter. What she said, though, was that this wasn't really any different from harvesting tissues or organs from brain-dead donors. She said, "It's for a good cause, and they'll be better off, in the end." But _causing_ the end – that's not supposed to be my job. And it's not the same the same as pulling the plug. They weren't brain dead – it was more like they had an incurable disease, or, a not-yet-curable disease. And that wasn't their fault, now, was it? So where do we get off deciding that our inability to cure them makes them expendable?

But we didn't find a way to free them, to cure them. Not in time. So we used them. God damn it, we used them up.

~-~-~-~-~-~-

A/N: Next chapter coming soon: another POV on being used. It won't be pretty either.


	3. You think you got used?

A/N: I actually wrote most of chapter two before chapter one. While I was writing chapter two (which had the working title "User,") I thought about how much Franklin would have hated the way Sheridan's interrogators used his image – ergo, chapter one. Then, while working on chapter one, I realized there were others the series who would have some strong things to say about being used. Here's another POV. Please enjoy this light-hearted little piece.

Ch. 3 You think _you_ got used?

In the civil war, most people got to choose sides, or at least had the illusion that they got to choose sides. I had my side chosen for me, and I can't even say, oh-so-smugly, "I was on the side of Earth, Mr. Garibaldi; weren't we all?" Bitch – where does she get off, anyhow?

Me, I was a first-round draft pick for Bester's team. After that, the "new Michael" was in charge, and I got to watch the show. I can remember everything "I" did. I was in there, watching, while the "new me" was out there screwing over everyone and everything I care about.

When Talia got taken over by the sleeper personality, you could see right away that she wasn't the same person. Nobody who really knew her – and I like to think I did – would ever think that the demon we saw was really part of Talia.

But when I got remade, when I got taken over, _my_ new and improved personality was _just_ enough like the real me that everyone was suckered. They knew something was up, but they trusted the "real me" enough to let the "new me" really fuck things up.

And _that's_ how _I _got used. Bester used my friends' trust in me to get exactly what he wanted. He didn't care about what I did to John. Sure, I know, there was no love lost between John and Bester, but that wasn't what it was about. John and I were both tools, to get me into Edgars' private lair. All Bester cared about was finding out what Edgars was doing.

The real me got to listen, while my mouth used John's love for his father to lure John to the rendezvous with the "new me." The real me got to watch John's eyes go flat when I slapped him with the tranq patch. While Clark's animals beat the living shit out of him. While they took him away.

After Bester had his way with me, after he let the "real me" out again, the least he could've done was shoot me. He probably thought my old friends would take care of that for him. Nice touch, Al.

They would've, too, if Lyta hadn't been with them. In fact, Stephen offered to "kill me twice," if I recall. And Franklin's the living embodiment of the Hippocratic oath. I've never been happy to be deep-scanned before. It hurt like hell, but I deserved it, didn't I?

When we finally got into the detention facility to spring John, and when Lyta finally got us into that cell, the only person John said a thing to – was me. Drugged up as he was, he could still remember the face of the guy that sold him out. He couldn't remember what I'd done, but boy, he knew I had it coming to me. I would've gladly taken anything he could've dished out – until I saw him empty a whole PPG power pack into that guard. Then, I was glad he couldn't remember. Cause it would've been me, and I would've deserved it.

I think, in a lotta ways, it would've been easier if he'd kicked my ass the hell off the station. You know what I did when he and Delenn got back from Earth? I offered to let him beat the shit out of me. I told him I'd feel better if he gave me a good pounding. And you know what he did? He looked me right in the eye, for a long time – I think he learned that one from Delenn – and said, "Michael, what's done is done. I know it wasn't really you. And I really don't ever want to talk about it. Ever." Door closed – boom.

So in true manly style, John and I have agreed to just never, ever, talk about what I did. And _definitely_ not about what happened when Clark's guys had him. I don't think he even talks to Delenn about that.

I didn't even get a tiny piece of what I really deserved.

So, you wanna talk about being used? Then come see me.

Now, where did I put that fuckin' bottle?


End file.
